


not so hidden talents

by lapinprince



Category: Uta no Prince-sama
Genre: M/M, Teasing, natsuki is as oblivious as ever, satsuki is just there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21831880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapinprince/pseuds/lapinprince
Summary: All Ren wanted was maybe some help with his lyrics, not a deep set feeling of fear in his poor, poor heart.
Relationships: Jinguuji Ren/Shinomiya Natsuki, Jinguuji Ren/Shinomiya Satsuki
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	not so hidden talents

**Author's Note:**

> this was a request from my best friend who likes when i write for rarer pairs! written in sept 2018.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/laprincenico)
> 
> -♔

“You’re home for the evening, then?” 

“Yup.”

Ren eyed his silver haired roommate, who was currently lounging back in his bed with his beloved bass sitting on his stomach. He sighed internally, careful not to sound too disappointed out loud– Ranmaru was not the ticking time bomb he sometimes insinuated him to be, but it was foolish to argue that he was anything but temperamental. “Alright. I’ll head out to one of the practice rooms,” Ren said, rummaging about for his things– notebooks, pencils, and his headphones being some of the things tossed into his bag. 

“The practice rooms are better for practicing, you know,” Ranmaru offered in a gratingly and redundantly helpful way. Ren was still looking forward to practicing his singing in the comfort of his own room, but there wasn’t any way around this situation now. He slung the strap of his bag over his head and opened the door.

“I know. I’ll see you later, Ranran.” Ren smiled and headed out the door, Ranmaru clicking his tongue at the nickname. He quickly headed towards the direction of the practice rooms, hoping that since it was after dinner, it wouldn’t be that busy. But that was just wishful thinking.

“Agh, everyone must be practicing their solos too–” Ren sighed upon the sight of all the doors in the practice room hallway shut. Still, sometimes people left the doors shut by accident when they left. He took a peek in the nearest door’s window to see if it was truly occupied, and was met with the image of Syo hopping around and shouting, doing his warmup exercises. 

“Occupied,” Ren mumbled to himself, moving to the next one. When he peeked into the window of this one, he spotted Haruka sitting at the piano with Tokiya. A pang of jealousy hit him, but that wasn’t what he was here for. The next one contained Otoya and Reiji surrounded by at least a few decks worth of cards, the latter scolding the former in what was probably a mishap while practicing magic tricks. There was one more room at the end of the hallway– if it was also occupied, he would just have to go practice outside or something. No big deal, but still not what he planned. 

Nothing could be seen from the window of the door– as far as he could tell, the last room was empty. Breathing a sigh of relief, he opened the door noisily, prepared to drop his stuff and finally practice.

“Uwahh-!” cried someone inside. Ren craned his neck to see that the room was indeed occupied– Natsuki, his arms folded up against his chest in surprise, sat at the desk that was against the same wall of the door, making it hard to see him by the window. Ren let out a dramatic sigh.

“Sorry, Shinomi– I didn’t see you. I haven’t been able to find an available practice room.” He threaded his fingers through his orange hair in slight irritation; not towards anyone in particular, just at the difficulty of just trying to find a spot to practice. 

“Oh! It’s okay. I’m almost done here, maybe 15-20 minutes?” Natsuki said apologetically, despite Ren being the one to barge into his own practice session. Ren thought carefully to what projects he had to finish– practicing his solo wasn’t the only thing he needed to do, in the end. 

“Take your time. I have some lyrics to polish up as well, if you don’t mind me sharing your desk.” Ren slid a notebook out of his bag and looked up to Natsuki for a response. 

“Oh! Go for it! I like having company when I’m composing, anyway!” The taller boy shuffled his things over so he occupied one side of the desk with all of his notebooks and papers. Ren raised his eyebrows after taking a good look at Natsuki’s papers. 

“Composing? Your own music?” Ren repeated, holding out a hand, silently asking permission to take a look at the sheet Natsuki was scribbling onto. Natsuki passed it over, smiling brightly. 

“Yeah! Sometimes, I just feel this huge urge to compose music– most of the time I don’t even remember it, but today I’ve been able to get a lot of what’s in my head out onto paper!” Natsuki grinned, fiddling with his pencil. “I was going to ask Haru-chan to look it over and incorporate it in a future project for me.” 

Ren glanced at the sheet music, sightreading the notes into the basic melody of the piece in his head easily. Once he was able to identify the melody, at least. The sheet’s arrangement looked near complete with separate staffs for different instruments, something that he generally saw when he peeked over at Haruka’s full sheet music. He never knew that Natsuki was capable of _this_ – though he did remember the part about Satsuki’s musical genius that Syo mentioned before. He quickly glanced up to Natsuki, who was fiddling with a Piyo-chan eraser while he waited for Ren to look at his paper. No, this was definitely Natsuki and not Satsuki here. 

“That’s amazing,” Ren commented, passing the paper back. “I had no idea that you were able to compose music, too.” He opened his own things, looking down at his sad scribbles of lyrics in the margins of his notebooks.

“Thank you! I don’t get to do it much, but maybe someday.” Natsuki beamed and smoothed the paper out with his hands, making a small panicked noise when he smudged some of the pencil. “Oh– I work with headphones in, but I’d appreciate your company regardless!” he continued while rubbing away at the smudge spots with his Piyo-chan eraser. That finished, he picked up his earphones and put them into his ears, waking up his phone and opening an app to resume composing. From where Ren was sitting, it looked like a mobile app that allowed one to play notes on a piano, but change the instrument if one wished. With his own pen held to his notebook, he watched Natsuki’s lips move silently as he tapped a few notes in succession. He repeated this action, mending an erred note or two with another one, then busily scribbled what was probably many more notes down on his sheet music. Ren gawked. How was he able to get almost 2 bars just from poking at maybe 5 notes at most?

His pen was still poised to the paper in the exact same position as before when Natsuki glanced over to Ren, who quickly started to scribble down some nonsense to make it seem like he wasn’t watching him intensely. The tips of his ears went red as it sounded like Natsuki was _laughing_ – but a closer look at his face showed the same serene expression of concentration from before. Ren tried to keep his eyes on his own notebook, but after hearing another short set of taps on a phone screen and a much longer string of pencil scritches on paper, he couldn’t resist looking up again.

At that exact moment, Natsuki started to rub at his eyes under his glasses, which didn’t perturb Ren as much. Then, he took his glasses off entirely and rested them on the desk, continuing to rub his eyes, making fear strike Ren deep in his heart. He stared, breath held, waiting for something to happen– but nothing did. 

“Hahh…” Ren sighed in relief, looking back down to his own notebook. A hand reached out and pulled it away from him before he could register what happened. He looked dumbly at Natsuki, who was intently reading the lyrics with one eye, his hand still covering the other.

“This for your solo?” Natsuki asked, in a bit more of a gruff voice than usual, his earphones held in one hand. “You should consider starting the song off differently. Your music will end up sounding the same, or sounding predictable.” 

“O-oh.” Ren wasn’t quite sure how to take the unsolicited advice, reaching to take his notebook back. Natsuki’s hand dropped, his furrowed brow and darker look in his eyes more pronounced now that Ren had full vision of his face. His gut dropped, similarly. 

“You’re also holding yourself back in your lyrics. “ _You can see right through me, I can’t show you more than this_ –” Why not live up to the seductive lady’s man that you always portray yourself as, huh?” Satsuki raised a brow, an almost sultry look in his eyes. “You talk about clothes earlier on. What about “ _Without stripping down, I can’t show you more than this_ ”? Same idea, and it links back to earlier.” 

“Uhm–” Ren’s eyes were wide, embarrassed at his own lyrics being read out to him without him expecting it. His mouth opened and closed, unable to even parse what was happening. 

“You really haven’t been paying attention to your own work, huh? You’ve written “Shinomi” here, lover boy.” Satsuki looked back to the notebook and smirked, setting it back in front of Ren after. “Well, whatever. Keep watching if you want. Natsuki deserves it.” 

“W-wait–” Ren sputtered, cheeks flushed red, unable to believe that he had actually absentmindedly written his nickname for Natsuki on his lyric pages. It was too late either way. Satsuki lifted the glasses back up to his face, giving Ren a smug look just before he put them back on.

“Oh, I lost my train of thought–” Natsuki lamented, so suddenly after the switch back that Ren himself nearly had whiplash. “–Ren-kun? Are you okay?” Natsuki tilted his head when he noticed that his dear friend had looked all flushed and sweaty. 

“Yes! I am. Don’t worry, Shi–” Ren hated that he hesitated, this was not how he worked, “Shinomi. It’s been fascinating watching you compose is all.” 

A lovely flush appeared on Natsuki’s cheeks at the compliment. “R-really? I don’t really talk much about it, so you’re the first person to watch me compose.” He laughed, a healthy and slightly embarrassed laugh. “I guess that makes you special, Ren-kun!” 

Ren would have appreciated a different wording because his chest and head weren’t coming together to agree on the weird feeling he had. He shook his head and gave a wry smile. “I don’t want to distract you any longer, Shinomi.”

“Right! Sorry,” Natsuki said cheerfully, putting his earphones back in. Ren looked back to his scribble of “Shinomi” right under the song title “Mellowx2 Chu”, which explained Satsuki’s smirking. He sighed deeply to himself, trying to keep his composure as he wrote in Satsuki’s suggestion. While he hadn’t had an up close and personal experience with Natsuki’s other personality, he certainly felt so thoroughly scrutinized that he could see right through him– excuse him, that he felt stripped naked in front of him.

He blew a breath out and started to revise his lyrics.

**Author's Note:**

> will i put satsuki in a fic at any opportunity? yes


End file.
